Stats that matter: PF/C Defense

In the next few posts I will discuss some of the statistical components that translate into winning basketball.  Players who inhibit these characteristics are also fairly available and some players who may damage teams due to their inability to help contribute to any of the below could be overrated etc.

These are four main factors that attribute to a winning basketball team (in order):

1. PF/C combo has good help defense

2. High Rebound Rate

3. High Assist to Turnover Rate

4. High 3 point attempt rate

Now it is rare that any team excels in all of these attributes.  

Upon doing further research some of the better (or worse teams) in the league simply excel at the first two items and are just average on the bottom two.  Let's take the Boston Celtics for example with our first metric.

PF/C Defense 

This is the hardest metric of the four to measure simply because there's no exact stat that specifically tells you if players are indeed good defensively or not.  There are items like block, steals, or a combination of the two (CHG aka defensive plays include charges taken), but they still do not tell a complete story of one's defensive prowess.

The best tool available for such an item is plus-minus.  Using basketballvalue.com we can find these numbers for any team over the course of the season.  For defensive purposes, a telling sign is if someones Net defensive +/- (i.e. the team's defensive rating for a certain player that is on the court vs when he is off it) is negative.  This indicates that the team allows a decreased opponent offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) when that player is on the floor vs. off it.  Obviously the more negative this number is the more it shows how much of an impact that player makes on the defensive end.

One of the major attributes to Boston's success (they did have 56 wins) was their front court rotation excelling in defensive net plus minus.

Now the reason I chose Boston here is simply because they were not stellar in any of the other metrics.  

Boston ranked 20th in rebounding rate, 11th in assist to turnover rate and 27th in 3 point attempt rate.

The reason for Boston still being able to have a solid season was indeed their PF/C front court defense (dealing Perkins did not help).

Below is a list of the net defensive +/- for Boston's PF/C combos (sorted by minutes played):

Glen Davis: 1.52

Kevin Garnett: -6.19 

Nenad Kristic: 2.85

Shaquille O'neal: .22

Kendrick Perkins: -3.72

Luke Harangody: -1.1

Semih Erden: 2.58

Jermaine O'neal: -1.57

Troy Murphy: -0.57

What we really see above is the impact KG had on the team's PF/C defense.  No other big in the team's top 4 minutes played came close to his -6.2 net defensive plus minus.

Seeing the above it is no reason to see how the team's decline after the Perkins for Green/Kristic deal was so glaring.  The team dealt away an over -3 net defensive plus minus for a 5 in Nenad who's number was over +2, a whopping 5 point swing.

BRI ended up being BS

It seemed when we started this lockout many moons ago that both sides would inevitably squabble over the mighty pie of basketball related income.  We heard for months that the NBA was going from a 57% share of the BRI down to 53%, then to 52.5%, then 52%, before what seemed like a monumental leap to 50%.

The NBA owners and commissioner seemed to have gotten what they originally sought for a 50/50 BRI split.  Why then is there no resolution?

It turns out that after all this time the BRI was actually secondary.  Both sides seem much more keen on these system issues.

What it seems to boil down to is the players wanting freedom to play wherever they want and the owners wanting competitive balance.

The players' biggest selling point is that they already gave back 7% ( I still don't understand how you 'give back' money you haven't earned yet) and would like to have the system issues be resolved more towards their liking.  The owners still maintain that they'd like competitive balance and see harsher luxury taxes, less MLE for tax teams etc etc as ways to establish such a premise.

Either way the simple solution both sides should make is really proving what is more important.  Money (The BRI split) or "Something Greater" (system issues - for owners competitive balance, for players freedom to play in any city etc).

If both sides really are now preaching of "something bigger than the BRI" then prove it.

Owners should have offered a deal that had the BRI split vastly in the players' favor but had stricter rules against teams going over the cap.   Would players have accepted a 47 - 53% BRI split (in owner's favor), if all of those new rules were vanished?  What about the owners?  Do they say yes to a 47-53% split if they are able to enact all of those new rules to solve the "system issues"?

That would have been the true test in this lockout.  Who really would have stayed with their "guns" regarding the agreement, willing enough to take a less than 50/50 BRI split when doing so.

It's too bad we couldn't get that far.  It's not too late to really show up the other side with that offer (or counter offer).